Postmodernism in Fashion-RESEARCH

Postmodernism in fashion has developed over the past twenty years with designers such as, Comme des Garçons, Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood demonstrating its key elements. So how is Postmodernism still relevant in fashion today?

Postmodernism has been widely used over the past two decades, but trying to pinpoint one definitive meaning for the term is very difficult indeed. Taken literally Postmodernism means “after the modernist movement”, but there is more to Postmodernism than that. One thing that is certain is Postmodernism is a flexible term that can cover a wide range of art forms. Critical theorists use Postmodernism to refer to a point of deviation for works of literature, drama, architecture, cinema and design.

Originally, Postmodernism was a reaction to modernism. Malcolm Barnard explains “where modernity conceived of the object in terms of production, Post modernity conceives of it in terms of consumption”. This means that all forms of art are made with the sole purpose of being ‘consumed’ and with a main target of postmodernism being to appeal to a wider audience the two go hand in hand. Postmodernism can also be used to describe the society in which we live in today:

So how does Postmodernism relates to Fashion? As mentioned above, postmodernism embraces all Art forms, one of the Art forms embraced by Postmodernism has been Fashion. Not always seen as “Art” and still frowned upon in this context by many traditional Art lovers, Fashion embodies many of the key elements of postmodernism, evidence of this can be seen on the international catwalks of the veteran and latest fashion designers.
Besides the established designers and representatives of postmodernism such as Maison Martin Margiela, Vivienna Westwood, Comme des Garçons and Hussein Chalayan, more recently, also new designers are using the influence of postmodernism in their collections. Constantly looking forward to the future of fashion but drawing from it’s past.Nothing seems to be too controversial for us anymore; we have seen and done it all. So, seeing a model walking down the catwalk in a see-through dress with nothing but her knickers on doesn’t cause the controversy it would thirty years ago. It doesn’t seem sexual or provocative in the slightest, women’s bodies aren’t just objects of desire anymore. We have the same status as men in many aspects, to me, this image shows women’s empowerment. Although, some feminists would disagree, Elizabeth Wilson points out,

“Now, feminists have begun to explore the meanings of fashionable and other kinds of dress. This exploration has gone against the grain of traditional feminist suspicion of fashionable dress: many feminists reject fashion because of the way in which it reinforces the sexual objectification of women; for it’s association with conspicuous consumption and the positioning of women as economic chattels, as property, and because it is held to be uncomfortable and to render women helpless (high heels and pinched-in waists, for example, can impede movement).”

“Postmodernism gestures towards all this in a word. The terms ‘post-modernism’ and ‘postmodern’ have seeped into semi-popular language as short-hand for a vague, general ‘zeitgeist’ (spirit of the times).”